In early 2010 I saw Sal Khan doing something inspiring. He had been diligently posting educational video after educational video on YouTube for years (“secret to overnight success…”) and was starting to get a real response from thousands of learners around the world.
I looked at the website at the time, thought I might be able to help, and sent him an email asking if I could.
I now consider myself unreasonably lucky to have spent the last 6 years riding the consequences of that email.
I volunteered until Sal turned Khan Academy into a real, more-than-one-person company, at which point I joined as our first engineer. I felt deep pride in using the engineering and management lessons I’d learned from Joel and Fog Creek to build a team pointed at KA’s epic mission: “A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.”
Now we’re a company of ~120 people. And that group has been steadily adding momentum to the pursuit of our mission, increasing Khan Academy’s impact a little here and a lot there…making me thankful while I just try to hold on:
(And while far more wishy-washy, my personal favorite signal of Khan Academy’s impact is the fact that every single day we receive stories like these about how access to a free education changed users’ lives. They are many. And meaningful. It’s actually hard not to become numb to them internally, which is a phenomenon we fight against.)
I never would’ve guessed half the above in 2010. This team has taught me many lessons, none more important than the fact that when a small group of people are willing to square up together against an epic problem, they can make a huge difference.
I bold mentions of this team because it’s taken a special group to accomplish the above. I’m not responsible for most of it, and KA’s highest impact is yet to come. But rest assured I’ll be the dude bragging that “at least I didn’t screw it all up in the early days” until I croak — the opportunity to play a small part alongside this team is a lifelong gift.
I’m off to a new mission, a personal connection of mine. By the numbers, it’s unlikely I’ll ever even approach the same level of world impact I got to have here.
But I’m gonna take a crack at a problem that’s important to me, and I’ll be wielding lessons learned from building Khan Academy — most importantly the fact that small groups can square up, together, and make big dents in epic problems.